Religious Discrimination in Peruvian Public Schools By Manuel A. Paz-y-Mino<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

The strong reaction in Peru to several cases in early 2004 of students being denied admission to Peruvian public schools because of illnesses such as AIDs and epilepsy, because of disability, and even, in the case of one boy, because of his long hair, show that significant numbers of citizens are no longer prepared to remain silent when their children’s right to education, inclusion, equality and liberty are denied.

 

The norms of Peruvian public schools specify how young students should dress (girls in skirts and white blouses, boys in trousers and white shirts), and regulate aspects of their appearance, in particular that boys should not have long hair or earrings, and students should not wear adornments on tongues or cheeks. But an exception was made in the case of a high school student who is a member of the Israeli Mission of the New Alliance – a Peruvian cult – because he wears his hair long for religious reasons. If, instead, he had said simply that he prefers long hair, or that his girlfriend prefers him to have long hair, he would have been refused entry to a public school. Are, then, aesthetic or sentimental reasons less important than religious ones?

 

If we really do not wish Peruvian public schools to discriminate for religious reasons, though, we should go further: we would have to demand the cancellation of religious courses, because they only teach one of the many religions that exist in the country, and of school prayers for the same reason. But is not Catholicism the faith of the majority in Peru, and do they not agree that their children should be given a course in their religion? Yes, that is true, but the country’s Constitution no longer mentions an official religion. In practice, a number of parents ask school directors to exempt their children from courses of Catholic orientation because they have different religious beliefs, or because they are not religious. This means that the growing minorities are being discriminated against, their needs not being met.

 

In reality, though, even if the Peruvian state wished to consider these needs, it could not, because it does not have the economic wherewithal to pay teachers and offer

 

courses in each non-Catholic religion, or even in world- views such as Agnosticism, Atheism or Humanism, as offered in some European countries. Parents who wish their children to acquire religious beliefs have churches, temples, and other religious facilities in which their children can study and grow in the ethos of that faith (of course those with the financial capacity can always enrol their children in private religious schools). However, it is not a simple thing to request, on behalf of equality and integrationism, the cancellation of courses in the Catholic religion in public schools, or its replacement with courses on ethics and the history of religions.

 

There is another consideration here. Although Article 50 of the current (1993) Constitution of Peru states that there is ‘a regimen of independence and autonomy’ between the Peruvian state and the Catholic Church, with the state collaborating with the Church and able to establish similar forms of cooperation with other confessions, it is nevertheless the case that the agreement signed in 1980 between Peru and the Vatican gives the Catholic Church special privileges [see also p. 5 – ed.]. The agreement formalized state economic grants ‘for the persons, works and services of the Catholic Church’ (Article 8) and tributary exonerations in favour of its ‘religious jurisdictions and communities’ (Article 10). This is in addition to the payment of teachers spreading Catholic doctrine in public schools, taken from the taxes of all Peruvians, Catholic or not.

 

If we really want a democratic and non-discriminatory Peruvian state, we should demand that our government should not privilege one religion above others. To achieve neutrality with respect to those of diverse religious persuasions or of none, be they in the majority or minority, we should work towards a true separation between church and state.

 

Manuel A. Paz-y-Mino is Director of the Peruvian Journal of Applied Philosophy (humanists.net/rpfa) and a founding- member of the Peruvian Humanist & Non-Religious Movement

(geocities.com/mphaperu).